I get asked this a lot! ha. I love seeing peoples reaction to the 'Gabi brewer' by Glow Beans, because it looks the same as my reaction was. I was introduced to this brewer when I was in London for the day and called in to hang with the guys at Caravan Coffee. We were shooting the breeze when Simon brought this guy out to make a brew. He said, 'It's pretty much like a batch brewer'. I was instantly sold and said right then I wanted to make something happen with them!
I have a love for batch brew coffee because I used to see it as such an underdog in the speciality coffee world. Thankfully a lot of shops are making really consistently great batch now but at the crest of the third wave when it was all about how much gear you had on the bench in front of you, making a jug of batch was i guess, seen as slipping back into the days of coffee house coffee that does wasn't specialty quality.
So with the Gabi, I kinda see it as a wee mini batch brewer. It comes in 3 main sections, which all pack into each other to make it super portable. The bottom section holds the filter and the coffee and has a flat bottom and a singular hole for coffee yield to drip through.This pretty much works like a kalita but with 1 drip through point. The middle section offers a shower screen vibe that evenly distribute the water across the coffee bed. Much like a batch brewer if left for the duration of the brew you will see small pits around the bed where the water has landed, so just like batch, my vibe is ALWAYS to watch your brew and agitate the bed periodically to keep it flat the whole way. The top section restricts the water flow to allow you to fill it up to the pre marked 150ml (genius!) and then let it run through. So no scales needed as long as you've weighed your coffee or are incredible at eye ballin it!
This brewer is just heaps of fun and is really all you need to guarantee you get the best out of every coffee you bring home.
My go to recipe is:
20g coffee to 300ml (2 top ups) water. Agitate after the first 150ml and then at the end just before the water finished running through.
Happy brewing team.
Stay RAD
Ben